A digital processing device with high connectivity and incoming/outgoing throughput is an entirely digital processor of digital computer type or a processor including at input one or more ADC components for converting an analogue signal to a digital signal (ADC for Analogue to Digital Converter) and/or at output one or more DAC components for converting a digital signal to an analogue signal (DAC for Digital to Analogue Converter) and entirely digital components for the remainder of the components.
The digital processing device can be in particular a Digital Transparent Processor (DTP) one function of which is to provide flexibility in terms of connectivity, channelization and frequency plan. The digital transparent processor DTP is not limited to a particular application and can be used equally for mobile applications and telecommunications applications when a requirement for flexibility is demanded of the frequency plan. In addition to the frequency plan flexibility allowed by the functionalities of this processor, a modular design of the processor is made possible in which flexibility is achieved as a function of the size of the connectivity matrix associated with each mission.
Numerous modular architectures of digital processors of various sizes entailing their connectivity matrices have been described in numerous documents. Some of these architectures have even been developed, tested and qualified for space applications.
These architectures are described for example in the following documents:
a first document by H. Gachon et al., entitled “Digital processor for telecommunication payload”, published in the Proceedings of 2nd ESA workshop on Advanced Flexible Telecom Payloads, April 2012,
a second document by P. Tabacco et al., entitled “Development & testing of a proof-of-concept real-time demonstrator representing a wideband Bent-Pipe on board Processor with beam forming”, published in the proceedings of an ESA workshop, 2012,
a third document by N. MacManus et al., entitled “Digital Beam-forming applicable to C, Ku and Ka bands”, published in the Proceedings of the 3rd ESA Workshop on Advanced Flexible Telecom Payloads, 21-24 Mar. 2016, and
a fourth document by H. Gachon et al., entitled “Spaceflex Digital Transparent Processor For Advanced Flexible Payloads” and published in the Proceedings of 3rd ESA Workshop on Advanced Flexible Telecom Payloads.
All these architectures are constructed on the basis of the definition of one or more unit generic modules or “basic bricks”, and of a modular assemblage of several unit modules making it possible to produce connectivity matrices of variable size of possibly as many as a hundred infeeds. The unit modules of this assemblage are grouped together in a compact and local manner. For this assemblage, optical links of short lengths have been developed to solve the equipment backplane connection issue related to the limitations of conventional links by electrical cables in terms of paucity of transmission throughput and/or of excessive bulk.
However, faced with the requirements of growing connectivity in terms of an ever larger number of infeeds of the connectivity matrix and/or of an ever larger band processed per infeed, i.e. of a larger total capacity, this translating into a larger throughput to be routed over a greater distance, greater mass, bulk, and thermal power to be dissipated of the item of equipment, current equipment architectures lead to incompatibilities of mechanical installation, thermal installation and of electromagnetic compatibility of the said item of equipment in relation to the space platform and the remaining items of equipment to be integrated on the same platform.
The technical problem is to increase the number and/or the throughput of input ports and of output ports and/or the input/output connectivity of a digital processing device and, in conjunction with the increase created in bulk, in mass and in thermal dissipation of the device, to increase the flexibility of installation of the said processing device within a predetermined space platform so as to render it compatible with the physical constraints, especially mechanical, thermal and electromagnetic compatibility constraints, which are fixed by the said space platform and by a predetermined number of other items of equipment fixed on the same platform.
The second technical problem is to render minimal the increase in mass brought about by the flexibility of installation afforded to the device in relation to the space platform.